Clear your Head

Friday, August 09, 2013

When I was a little girl and I had a bad dream, my Dad would always give me the same piece of advice, "Clear your Mind, say your prayers and go back to bed." Sometimes, this was successful and the monsters would disappear and off to dreamland I would go. Other times, those big scary creatures needed more convincing to vamoose, but that usually just let to a reiteration of the same sage advice.

Well, flash forward a couple of decades or so, and Dad was onto something. Nothing feels as great as a clear head. You get those endorphins swimming around, making you smile from the inside out. Making you believe you can tackle anything from leaping a tall building in a single bound, overcoming a hangnail, or surpassing the work of a co-worker with a buttinski attitude. It does not matter what was eating you before this mind-clearing event. It all dissipates when you move through the other side.

How do you get there? For me, mind clearing, in big whooshes of happy head comes from sweating it out on the bike and then throwing around the medicine ball. I am not kidding when I say I frequently want to cry when I am finished working out. It takes so much from me --- but ahhhhh, what it is giving back!!! It is giving me peace, serenity, and sculpted arms. Heck yeah, there is still a lot of fat on those same arms, but I see a difference. it is happening, and when it does (after I have conquered a workout), I feel elated, me and my shaky arms who need a breather before we can open up our locker, but just the same, Dad was right. It clears my mind. The rest comes later!